European scientists discover two new subatomic particles

European Organization on Nuclear Research (CERN) scientists discovered two new subatomic particles in the baryon family. According to the CERN headquarters statement, the discovery was made in an experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), subatomic particles accelerator, situated in Switzerland and France.

According to the communique, these particles “were predicted to exist by the quark model but had never been seen before”. But another particle in the baryon family was discovered in 2012.

Like the protons that the LHC accelerates, the new particles are baryons made up of three quarks (fundamental particles) bound together by the strong force. The types of quarks are different, though. Thanks to one of them, the heavyweight b quark, they are more than six times as massive as the proton.

However the mass of the opened particles depends not only on total weight of quarks but also on their configuration. Because of different spin position (elementary particles angular momentum) in two lighter quarks the particles have different mass.